Jim went on to blog his rankings for the top pitching prospect duos in the game over on Callis’ Corner. I must admit I’m a bit dismayed he put my Taillon-Glasnow third on his list, but I’ll get over it.

To extract some measure of revenge, however, I wanted to provide my own rankings, of a sort. I used it in my argument in picking Taillon and Glasnow: the Prospect Points. That’s the system we used to provide an organizational standings from the Top 100list. I used the same idea — 100 points for the No.1 prospect, 99 for No. 2 (Jon Gray gets 87 points for being No. 14, as a result)., etc. Using this system, here’s how the top tandems in the Top 100 (only one pairing for an organization listed eve if they have more than two pitchers in the Top 100) stack up:

1. Taillon and Glasnow, Pirates: 165 points. I rest my case.

2.Dylan Bundy and Kevin Gausman, Orioles: 159 points. Jim’s not the only one who can put the O’s No. 2.

Since the Opening Day post about how the Top 100 in the Minors did seemed to go over so well, I thought I’d do it again, updating all 100 players, at all levels, and how they’ve fared heading into Monday’s action. As always, you can check out all 100 guys, or the top 20 for every team, over on Prospect Watch. And MLBPipeline is an excellent one-stop shopping destination for your Prospect needs.

Oscar Taveras was back home attending to a personal matter, but is expected to be in Triple-A Memphis’ lineup today.

Organization-mate Carlos Martinez is on the Temporary Inactive List. He missed nearly all of Spring Training because of visa issues. He’ll catch up in Extended Spring Training and join Double-A Springfield eventually.

A couple of notes:

* Trevor Bauer is listed as with Triple-A Columbus, but his stats are from the big league start he made before being sent back down.

**David Dahl played one game for Class A Asheville in the Rockies system, but was then sent to Extended Spring Training for disciplinary reasons.

There are also a couple of new blogs that are definitely worth checking out. The Futurists is written by bloggers/fans/prospect geeks (that’s a complimentary term). It’s been a very active community writing and discussing all sorts of prospecty things.

Then there’s We the Prospects. That’s a blog written by prospects themselves about their experiences during the 2012 season. It’s just getting started with three players introducing themselves so far: the Brewers’ Nick Ramirez, the Diamondbacks’ Adam Eaton and the Reds’ Tucker Barnhart. Keep checking on that one for updates from that trio as well as other Minor Leaguers.

I leave you with this statistical tidbit:

To date, there are just two pitchers who qualify for an ERA title in the Minors who have an ERA of 0.00. They are Matt Barnes of the Red Sox and Felipe Rivero of the Rays. There are 15 pitchers who have yet to allow a hit in the Minor Leagues so far. None of them have thrown more than four innings, with one big exception: Orioles prospect Dylan Bundy, who has gone 13 hitless innings to start his professional career.

Oh, and keep an eye out for the 2012 Draft section to launch next week.

It certainly is a mistake to read too much into the first few games of a season or a player’s career. But it’s hard to ignore what Dylan Bundy (follow him on Twitter @Dylan_Bundy) has done right out of the gate here in 2012.

The No. 1o overall prospect and No. 2 on the Orioles’ Top 20 has made just two appearances at three innings apiece. But it’s hard to find anyone else who’s begun a career in more exciting fashion than what Bundy has done with his first six professional innings.

Dylan Bundy has been perfect so far during his pro debut.

Bundy, the No. 4 pick in last year’s Draft (Matt Hobgood, btw, was the No. 5 pick overall, by the Orioles, in 2009) has faced 18 batters in those six innings and retired all 18. Not a hit, nary a baserunner to be found. Of those 18 outs, 12 have come by way of the strikeout. In total, he’s thrown only 14 pitches.

Ok, that last stat I made up. But come on, it’s hard not to be impressed, right? Yes, Bundy had a reputation of being an advanced high school guy, one who might move faster than most prep arms. But you think Orioles fans were excited about him before the year started? If he keeps this up, they’ll become apoplectic. People ask if he’s good enough to make it to the big leagues this year. That’s not going to happen, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll stay too long in the South Atlantic League if this continues. The Orioles will — and should — be patient, but something tells me he’s going to push them pretty hard.

(Editor’s note: Check out a recent blog post on our new prospect blog, The Futurists, about the Bundy Hype.)

It got us thinking (us being myself and MLB.com colleague Jason Ratliff) about past high school phenoms coming out of the Draft. We had a theory that there were few, if any, high school pitchers who began their first full season of pro ball in as dominating a fashion as Bundy has. We couldn’t go all the way back — we don’t have game-by-game information in the Minors prior to 1999 (I was curious to see what Dwight Gooden did in his first 2 outings. In his first pro season, his only one in the Minors, he struck out 300. He also won 19 games while throwing 191 innings and completing 10 games — I guess monitoring pitch counts wasn’t such a big deal in 1983. Oh, he also walked 112). So starting with the 1999 Draft, here’s a partial list of high school pitchers taken in the top 10 of the Draft who got off to solid, if not quite Bundy-esque starts the following season. Archie Bradley, the fellow Oklahoman from last year’s Draft, is trying to keep up. Zack Greinke, who made his full-season debut in the Class A Advanced Carolina League, is the one who comes closest in my book.

A story on Yahoo! Sports stated that top high school pitching prospect Dylan Bundy has told some teams — including the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals — not to select him because of concerns those teams would force him to abandon his long-tossing program. You can read Jeff Passan’s story here.

Bundy uses a program where he’ll throw from distances up to 300 feet, something some teams don’t do. A discussion about the success of different throwing programs is a subject for another time. The question now is if Bundy is indeed instructing teams to stay away from him because of this, or any other, issue.

Based on conversations I’ve had with those two teams — picking first and fifth, respectively — this is news to them. The Royals told me that they have not communicated with Bundy regarding this subject in any fashion. The Pirates echoed that, saying they were unaware of any such concerns or demands.

This is not to say that Bundy doesn’t have concerns about continuing his slightly unorthodox workouts. But at least according to the two teams referenced in the story, he has not vocalized it to them. There has been a very big price tag being mentioned with Bundy and there are those who feel that the bonus demands, and maybe this talk about the throwing program, are designed to steer him to a specific club. There’s no buzz about which team that is, but this is bound to get more interesting as we get closer to the Draft.

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